


Counterproductive – Girls’ side

by Kammyh



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Completed, Drama, F/F, Femslash, Humor, Love Confession, Not Beta Read, One Shot, two side story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 02:43:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7917331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kammyh/pseuds/Kammyh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abby has a plan to put into action and it hopefully should lead to her two best friends getting together</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counterproductive – Girls’ side

**Author's Note:**

> Counterproductive is a two side story. The same story is told twice, once for the boys-verse, the other for the girls-verse. Both stories live on their own since they take into account the obvious differences in evolution of the personality for the various characters and general background. A major difference coming from the different backgrounds is the lack of a sex scene for the girls, that simply couldn’t belong to this particular plot, since Erin and Jillian don’t know one another as much as Peter and Egon. Sorry for the mishap.

Disclaimer: I don’t own Ghostbusters 2016

Warnings: Fem Slash. English is not my native language, any useful suggestion is appreciated.

 

**Counterproductive – Girls’ side**

 

“Erin!!!” Abigail bellowed, the high roofs of the firehouse amplifying the wave sounds even more than strictly necessary. “Get your ass up here before I commit a murder!!”

Erin looked up from the physics article she was reading for the fourth time: some scientist really could turn the easiest things soporific with that manly boosting ego radiating from every single word. Moreover, it was long, boring and had too many specific words that only annoyed her and made her want to paint inside them with the lighter she had in her hand. Worse than that, she was sure that some of those words were difficult only for the sake of being so and make the ego boost appear actually well earned. Why she could never find something interesting written properly? Science was supposed to be objective, screw the self evaluation… Well, in articles and books written for a small community of scientists at least, because in person she wanted plenty of recognition for her work.

Another bellow from upstairs made her realize that she ought to make her decision quickly, a decision that could be tricky either way: risking getting involved on something dangerous Jillian was probably assembling or keep erasing every single praises to himself the author had added to finally understand what the whole point of the article was? Hmm… She really had to wonder what was worse between the two.

“Abby screaming at hour midnight!” Kevin diligently reported, making Erin roll her eyes.

“It’s twelve, Kevin. Hour twelve.” She corrected, earning a smart grin from the blonde secretary.

“But you don’t say twelve o’ clock, you say midnight or noon.” His grin became even wider, much to Erin’s dismay. “I checked”

Erin killed her next words on the tip of her tongue and decided to move up upstairs to see by herself what the problem was. She really hoped something hadn’t already caught fire and melt, because lately Jillian appeared to have hit a bad stroke of failures, and Erin was bored to use the little chemistry she knew to clean the lab from something she even had to wonder why was there in the first place.

 “What’s with the noise?” Erin countered as soon as she got to the second floor, letting the article she had been reading fall noisily on one of the tables to properly cross her arms over her chest in distress.

Abigail threw a nonchalant look at the papers and then grinned. “Nice flowers”

“Look” Erin defended herself, trying to look dignified even though she knew she was at fault there. “After a while someone gets bored of ‘ _and like you little stupid creatures can’t imagine unlike me, the greatest genius_ ’” The last quote was pronounced in a tone that was supposed to mock male speech and that actually made the other girls inside the lab snicker. “So? What’s the deal? Nothing is melting, I see”

Jillian coughed and Abigail opened her mouth only to close it again and change the topic as a whole.

“You help Holtz with her work, I’ll get out of here and take a walk” She explained eventually, cutting further reply short and not even pretending to hide her nerves. “A veeery long walk. Like, going to the bookstore at the other side of New York and then back to where Patty is having her mechanics lessons”

Erin raised an eyebrow at her friend’s words.

“She’s nice, she said she’s trying to perfect her knowledge about cars in order to deal with the Ecto1 in my place” Jillian supplied quickly, completely missing the point of what Erin was more than just a little worried about.

“Me?? Help out Holtzman??” She protested, utterly shocked. “Look, I’m not really the right person, things can end up pretty bad”

“Just do it and shut it, girl” Abigail cut short, as she approached the stairs to go downstairs. Only few seconds passed and, from the bellowing coming from the ground floor, it became obvious for both the remaining ghostbusters that she was bringing Kevin with her.

Therefore Erin was left alone, she concluded. With Jillian. On purpose.

Somehow, the whole arrangement sound suspiciously like a trap, a trap she couldn’t even start to wonder whether it was done for her good or to prank her. Jillian and Abigail loved pranks, but truth was that they usually did it as a couple: the first for reasons unknown to Erin, the latter because she honestly hoped Erin could stop paying too much attention to what the other people thought of her. It was honestly nice on Abigail’s side, Erin had to acknowledge after she gave over too many scares, but truth was that Erin was not paying too much attention to what others wanted from her. She only tried to have at least one in their group people would be comfortable to talk to… And you need to look proper for that, right? She didn’t need pranks pulled at her…

She really hoped this was not one of their games.

“So, what do you want me to do?”  Erin offered eventually.

“You can just stay there and look cute, it should be enough” Jillian blurted out, chocking on her own attempted laugh, apparently shocked at her own words as soon as she had stated them. Damn Abigail and damn herself for confessing to Abigail was the only mantra currently occupying the young engineer’s mind. “Ehm, I mean… You can… Can you take a look at the readings?”

Jillian flirting with her was nothing new, therefore Erin dismissed the first part of the statement quickly and simply nodded, as she approached the screen linked to the machine Jillian was working on.

“This one? What do I need to look for?” Erin asked diligently, making Jillian sigh at her bad choice of chores: she was so nervous she could barely remember what the hell she was working on, asking her the details now was plainly cruel.

“Changes in the value” Jillian tried “It shouldn’t be too over one million”

“Too over? As in?” Erin asked doubtfully hearing such unscientific ratio. Sometimes Jillian happened to be vague, but not usually during experimentations, and typically she could explicit why he had to keep variables so fluctuating.  

Jillian’s mouth opened to reply and then closed before she inefficiently offered a weak “A tad?” that made Erin sigh and Jillian almost deciding to forfeit everything Abigail had put her up to. Not really sure what to do, Jillian eventually decided to do her best to turn away from Erin and just do the work that actually needed to finish.

Truth was that Jillian had eventually ended up confessing Abigail that she had a crush on her best friend, confession that at first had no consequences whatsoever, if you didn’t regard as consequence Abigail over-caringly double checking if Jillian was actually up to it each time she planned a prank on Erin. After more than just a couple of days of pure distraction on Jillian’s side, however, Abigail decided that the two scientists just _had_ to settle things. For better or worse. Hence the idea of leaving them alone in the firehouse while she attempted to explain Kevin what was going on.

What was worse, on Jillian’s point of view, was that she had also attempted to make suggestions about how she should tell Erin, just like Jillian hadn’t already a bunch of stupid phrases ready to throw at Erin that would be both unimaginative and utterly embarrassing. She’d done her best to catch Erin’s eye since the day she had met her, and she had plainly missed the point each and every time: she had scared her with her dancing, she froze her on the spot with the random fires, she almost killed her making her try her prototype of a proton pack… She had honestly thought it would be romantic letting Erin try it first, but, as Patricia had put it, it had actually looked like she’d tried to get rid of the new girl on the team. Damn. At least later on she had stopped Erin in time when she’d chose among all the possibilities exactly the weapon she had been less sure about, but, unlucky as she was around Erin, it had appeared to everyone else as she wasn’t going to trust her with more than a pocket knife.

Yeah, because before organising the afternoon alone with Erin, Abigail and Jillian had told Patricia. Her point of view on the matter had been betting on Jillian’s utter failure, because there was no way in heaven and hell that Erin would trust herself once again to the girl that almost got her killed under the express train to the Bronx. Jillian really couldn’t find a way to oppose to that, but Patricia had been kind enough to hand over the address of a new bar in the area and throw in some tips of does and don’ts just in case she succeeded. It had been a nice thought, but making a serious confession was slightly more difficult than she had believed possible… Maybe hers was really a lost case.

Eventually, half an hour passed with Jillian deeply focused on her tinkering and Erin trying to fight off sleep as she stared at the unmoving figures.

“It’s quite boring, is that why Abby left?” Erin complained after a while, turning to stare at her companion just in time to see the other physicist tense up and then compose her facial expression in one that pretended all too badly that everything was alright.

“It’s my fault” Jillian started, honest discouragement seeping through her uncertain tone before she noticed Erin’s questioning expression and realized what she’d been just about to confess.

“What do you mean by that?” Was Erin’s punctual and attentive question.

Jillian tensed up again and looked as far as she could from Erin, before blurting out the first thing that came into her mind.

“It’s boring because you’re not good at dealing with practical engineering, I can’t let you actually put your hands on these machines” Jillian admitted, her voice wavering a little despite the slight change in tone she had put on.

“Then why call me up here in the first place?” Erin asked seriously, not moving her eyes from her colleague’s figure as she slowly pretended to get back to her work.

Jillian didn’t answer straight ahead, but even Erin could see she had actually stopped working on the piece of machinery and was only moving the screwdriver randomly inside the voids of the machinery.

“Do you…” She eventually asked. “Do you ever get tired of pretending?”

Erin’s eyes grew larger. “I beg your pardon?”

“You always try to meet expectation… When I first met you at the Higgins’ research lab, the first thing I thought was… that you were faking it.”

“That’s one way with words” Erin muttered, not really knowing how to say to that. “Is that why you picked on me like two school girls that day?”

“Abby was angry that you abandoned her” Jillian countered, her eyes not leaving the machine she was working on as she started poking a particularly loose screw. “She trusts you, however, she knows that you will eventually understand that meeting expectations that are not really yours won’t get you anything”

“Oh” Erin said, not really sure how to take Jillian’s words. She wanted to protest, to say that it wasn’t true, but maybe it was that her friends had said things so matter-of-factly that she was left with no room for complaining. Besides, what she had revealed was Abigail’s point of view, not hers: as far as she had understood, Jillian thought she was pretending, up until now. “So, they left us alone so that you could tell me… I’m fake?”

Jillian stopped poking the screw and let the screwdriver fall on the floor, but still didn’t meet Erin’s eyes. “Not really” She spoke up eventually.

“Then why?” Erin’s voice was lower than her usual and much warmer, trying to sound open enough to encourage her friend to speak openly her mind.

“You should answer my question before throwing at me another” Jillian complained, pursing her lips in disappointment.

“What?” Erin asked, faking surprise even though she knew pretty well what her friend meant. Damn she thought that her plan to divert attention from her had been perfect.

“Do you ever get tired of pretending?” Jillian repeated, this time her blue eyes stared deep and unsure at Erin’s, piercing her heart with guilt and uncertainty.

“Some words for someone who’s always faking it herself” Came out as a whisper, despite Erin’s better effort to stop herself.

Jillian blushed and swallowed hard, her eyes once again looking to her side. “It’s not that I can really deny it, that’s why I asked you if you weren’t tired to do the same”

That admission was not what Erin expected, as it was not expected the fear that was slowly taking over her. When you are not strong enough to face the world you pretend and cover up, take a character and then try to keep it up the more you can. Erin’s choice had been the perfect scientist chara, but being female in a male sector meant that she had to put on a third mask that would look appealing to most of her colleagues, and all those masks had slowly began to melt and mix together.

Scientists were not supposed to believe in something they couldn’t yet prove or in something that took too much time and resources only basing their analysis on a hunch… but Erin believed in ghosts and had a whole theory planned that she had needed too many resources to prove. Girls were supposed to please, serve, be nice and try to not outsmart the superiors, but Erin just wanted to do her job properly and hell with it.

Becoming a Ghostbuster had finally freed her of all that -despite the Major’s assistant still telling them to tune it down- still, residues of those masks remained on Erin, as it remained her will to follow expectations and be approved.

Jillian wasn’t much different.

It didn’t take her too many adventures and night up cleaning the lab after some mess up to understand that Jillian was actually shy and fundamentally alone. Her choice of façade was to stand out so much that she could finally be noticed by someone: she turned awkward in even more awkward, shyness into rudeness, genius into madness. In some way, their masks made them one the opposite of the other even though they were deep inside quite similar.

As long as those masks were in place, their hearts couldn’t get in touch, because Jillian’s awkwardness asked for Erin’s reproaches, and Erin’s uptight manner asked for Jillian’s pranks. It was difficult for Erin to get rid of the fear of what the other people would think of her that had made her done it, and she could only guess that for Jillian was the same, no matter how much they both wished to just enjoy the moment freely.

“I’m sorry, I got defensive” Erin admitted eventually, eliciting an embarrassed smile from Jillian.

“I knew it would happen” She countered, looking once again up at Erin, this time her eyes shining with a mysterious light Erin couldn’t name. “Guess this answer my question. You _do_ get tired”

“Yeah” Erin admitted eventually. “But we do need to meet expectations, don’t we? It’s a society thing”

 “I work with figures and formulas… They can’t lie. They could be deceiving at a first glance, but when you manage to get around them, you only get one answer” Jillian answered cryptically. “I mean, one result, the answers can be two, or more or infinite or no one-”

“I- I get the point” Erin interrupted. Trust Jillian to start babbling about Math when she was in distress. “Maybe that’s why many people hate it” She added with a chuckle, hoping that humor could just work. As her eyes met once again with Jillian, however, she found her friend staring intensely at her.

“You… Do you think it too?”

In all honesty Erin hadn’t given it much thought, but all things considered her affirmation couldn’t really be proven wring. Therefore, she offered Jillian a sympathetic smile and nodded. “It’s a working theory as far as I know”

Jillian chuckled and smiled back at her. “I knew you were smart” She offered, before her embarrassment seemed to have impeded her once again. “It’s strange that you’re in love with Kevin”

“Well, wait a minute” Erin hasted to point out. “He’s a hunk and I wouldn’t refuse a one night stand with him given the chance… if he wasn’t our employee, of course. But from there to say in love, well, it’s not really something I see happening”

“Why’s that?” Jillian asked, seriously interested in Erin’s confession. “Not mentally challenging, is he?” She teased with a wide grin.

“You can say so” Erin confirmed, nodding and grimacing painfully. “I simply… can’t. Personal tastes.”

“We finally agree on something. Strange, isn’t it?” The young engineer noted, biting her lower lips in nervousness. She waited for Erin to nod before muttering almost to herself. “Makes you wonder what else we could agree on”

“I beg your pardon?” Erin asked, apparently making Jillian realize she had spoken her thoughts aloud.

Jillian panicked and tried to focus back her attention on the piece of machinery in front of her, but she eventually put her foot over the fallen screwdriver and lost balance, bringing with her a chunk of metal that inadvertently -as much as comically- caused a combustion.

Erin had been ready for that to happen since she had set foot inside the lab, therefore she was quick reaching for the fire extinguisher before the fire got worse. Jillian, from her fallen position under the table ended up covered in white foam herself, before she got a hold of the power cable connected to the machine and pulled the electric connector out of its socket. After taking off a bit of foam from her hair and face, she simply stared up at Erin crestfallen.

“Thank you” Jillian muttered, her heart skipping a beat as she noticed how close to her Erin had gotten to whiten up her now ruined experiment. Maybe forgetting to unplug the thing wasn’t the best idea she had ever gotten.

Apparently Erin thought the same thing, because she quickly turned to stare down at her her companion to reprimand her for her negligence, succeeding however only to slip on the white mousse now dripping from the machine and falling right over Jillian.

Erin at first stared down at her friend, frozen in embarrassment, whilst Jillian simply stopped breathing altogether, her eyes wide in shock as she registered both their position and the implications that followed.

“I-I’m s-sorry” Erin stuttered in panic, hoping she hadn’t hurt her friend with her fall. She tried to get up somehow despite the sticky floor, but her hands and knees didn’t seem anywhere near giving her the stability she needed for the task.

Eventually, Jillian took a hold of her arm to just keep Erin where she was. “You are not really hurting me, you know?”

“Am I not a bit… heavy?” Erin asked surprised but stopping her attempt to flee.

Jillian swallowed and tried to offer a smile, despite the panic hindering her movements. “Hot I would say… I mean. You’re warm”

Things started adding up one after the other into Erin’s mind: they were alone, Jillian wasn’t getting one thing right and was skittish with her, the debate about pretending…

“Holtz, you know” Erin said, wondering how to put things down without sounding nasty. “If there’s something you want to tell me, you should just do it. Masks off, otherwise, well, I think we would clash”

“I like you” Jillian answered in a rush, deciding that it was now or never. “Would you like having coffee with me? One day. When you want. No ghosts.”

The last fragment was enough to distract Erin from the actual implication of her friend’s confession.

“No ghosts?”

“It slipped” Jillian admitted, still rigid and staring at something not better identified at her side in order to not meet Erin’s eyes.

“Does it slip with everyone or only sometimes?” Erin’s soft voice seemed to tease Jillian, making her heart race miles.

“Rarely” She confessed. “And only this time after saying, well, I like you”

Erin kept staring at Jillian, trying to read her almost blank expression as she moved to sit on the floor.

“I… I wouldn’t mind going out with you” Erin answered eventually, earning Jillian surprised stare on her.

“I thought you didn’t like girls”  

“I think you’re cute.” Erin answered honestly. “And for once you don’t look like mocking me, so… I want to try giving you my trust. I’m sure you will know how to handle it”

Erin’s honest answer made Jillian feel slightly guilty, since she knew Erin had plenty of reason to not trust her good faith confessing her, but it also made her feel relieved , because, somehow, she had really won her trust…. How it had happened with all the disasters and mistakes she had made with her was still a mystery, but Jillian didn’t really feel like complaining right now.

“You… You thought this could be some kind of joke?” Jillian asked.

“I thought your flirting meant that until today… I-I actually thought it right up when Abby called for me to join you today”

“Why do you believe me now, then?”

“You keep stuttering.” Erin said with a faint blush on her cheeks and a shy smile on her lips. “You stutter and look cute only when you’re honest, just like when you made that speech at the bar after surviving Rayan’s ghost. When you are pretending you’re loud and self conscious… You’re cool and I like it, but you can also be quite annoying, if I have to say so… Especially when you tease me”

“You noticed me that way however” Jillian pointed out with a smart smirk.

“Yeah, you’re right” Erin conceded, and finally Jillian herself decided to sit up, checking her friend’s reactions through her long eyelashes.

“A kiss… would be too much?” Jillian asked shyly.

Erin chuckled lightly, taking Jillian by surprise. “Extremely cute” She concluded, smirking at her friend before capturing her lips in a chaste kiss.

Erin felt on fire, the slight trembling of Jillian’s lips touching hers giving her a rush she wouldn’t have imagined in a lifetime. As Jillian became more confident, also the kiss slightly changed, deepening in a giving between equals that had nothing to compare to the sharpness of the retorts they used to throw at one another. Erin wondered whether she was allowed to ask more of Jillian or not… They were both old enough to adventure a little further and, considering that the firehouse was empty, not making use of it would be really bad.

“Holtz?” Erin managed to ask, lips barely few inches apart. “Do you want to try something… more?”

Jillian’s stare was unreadable, and Erin could see the gears in her brain running full speed to find a proper interpretation for those words. To help her friend regaining a bit of that self consciousness she was famous for, she decided to play exasperation: instead of kissing her once again on her lips, she started leaving small butterfly kisses from the corner of her lips down towards her neck, all the while teasing lightly her sides from above the fine layers of clothing.

As Erin had imagined, it took her only one trip down and then back of kisses to fluster Jillian enough to make her meet once again her lips in a heated kiss that eventually found Erin’s lips slightly opened for Jillian to claim. Tongues meet soon after in rapid clashes and twirls, as hands roamed freely and desperately above their upper clothing, skimming across the soft fabric while their minds already started imagining the soft curves they would find under them, if only they had enough confidence to dare making another move forward in their relationship.

Eventually, Erin let herself lay down, bringing Jillian down with her over the messy foam that was rapidly becoming translucent liquid and with that ruining their clothing once and for all. Not that one of them minded, since it turned their now soaked clothing almost see through, making them cling to their petite figures and showing maybe more than they were at the moment prepared to give to the other. At least, that was what Jillian though, since all the slime in the word seemed to always find Erin, making her indecent in front of Jillian many more time that she could count in their very brief time together.

Jillian, without breaking the kiss, managed to roll them a bit further from the dripping slab but they were both soaked beyond salvage, something that made their making out even more hot and arousing than they would have ever imagined. When eventually the kiss broke and they looked at one another, they found themselves laughing embarrassedly at the mess that had become of their clothes and hair.

“I think we’d better get a shower” Erin admitted covering her face with both her hands in embarrassment.

“Separately” Jillian pointed out, before bursting out in laughter and covering her mouth and part of her reddened cheek with her hand.

“Yeah…” Erin nodded, looking thoughtful but still not making a move to stand up. “About that coffee” She started, earning Jillian’s full attention on her. “There’s a nice café not so far from here. You… You wanna try that?”

“When?”

“Let’s say…” Erin looked at the hour on her watch. “Thirty minutes?”

Jillian’s eyes grew wide and she rushed quickly towards the showers, forgetting to bring with her a change altogether. “Make it fifteen!” Jillian’s voice came from inside the bathroom.

Erin sighed and then went to get Jillian’s clothes from her closet before heading to hers in order to gather her own change. She placed strategically a chair in front of the bathroom adjoined the lab with Jillian’s things on it, so that the young engineer could find them ready for her once she had noticed her forgetfulness, and then headed for the showers on the first floor to wash herself.

Jillian was a mess and completely unsure of herself, whilst Erin was still trying to demonstrate something she didn’t really understand herself to the rest of the world; moreover, they were women, they were _both_ women, colleagues in the academics and partners in business. This whole relationship was going to be quite counterproductive for the both of them, no doubt about it, but, as of now, Erin plainly and simply didn’t care.

**The end.**


End file.
